Stocks Trip Ahead of Fed Gathering

Sanjay Jha, COO and President of CDMA Technologies with Qualcomm, will leave to become co-CEO of Motorola and chief of the company's mobile devices business. Motorola's current CEO, Greg Brown, will also serve as co-CEO and will head up the broadband mobility solutions division.

Among analyst actions, Amgen (AMGN Quote) was initiated as a buy at Bank of America, while Deere (DE Quote) was downgraded at Goldman Sachs to neutral from buy.

Nortel (NT Quote) was cut at Jefferies to hold from buy, and Morgan Stanley lifted its price target on Bank of America (BAC Quote) to $22 from $15.

The chip sector was in focus throughout the day after the Semiconductor Industry Association said global sales of semiconductors for the first half of the year rose to $127.5 billion, up 5.4% from the same period in 2007. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Sector index was better by 0.5%.

The United States Oil (USO Quote) ETF, which tracks the price of crude, slumped 3.5%.